This article explains how to download COUNTER reports from the Subscription Manager.
External audit in progress ⌛
Beta access now available - request access
About COUNTER
COUNTER provides libraries and consortia with standardised, trustworthy usage metrics from publishers and platforms, ensuring consistency and comparability across different systems.
COUNTER is managed by a not-for-profit organisation who are financially sustained by a global membership, including libraries, consortia, publishers, aggregators, and technology providers.
To ensure standardised reporting COUNTER develop and maintain a global standard for measuring and reporting content usage. The requirements for this global standard are documented in a Code of Practice. A new version of the Code of Practice is published every 3-5 years.
The latest Code of Practice is release 5.1. This is the first release Perlego supports. We do not support any earlier releases.
Download COUNTER Reports
Tabular Reports
To download tabular COUNTER reports login to Perlego and go to the Organisation Subscription Manager.
- Go to the Analytics tab
- Select Export COUNTER reports
- This will open the COUNTER export menu
- Choose the ‘start’ and ‘end’ month of the data you want the export to include
- Select the report type and click ‘next’
- Now choose the specific report you want to export. You can only export one report at a time.
- Finally, choose the Metric Types that you want to include in the export
- The report will be downloaded in your browser
All tabular reports are exported in .xlsx format and can be opened in any spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
SUSHI API Reports
The SUSHI API allows you to extract COUNTER reports in JSON format, for automated report harvesting.
To access your organisations data through the SUSHI API you need our API URL and a unique API Key.
We provide this access on request. Please raise a support ticket to request your API credentials.
Supported Reports
As Perlego is an eBook Collection not all of the COUNTER reports are applicable. We provide the following reports:
- Platform Report (PR)
- Platform Usage (PR_P1)
- Database Report (DR)
- Database Search and Item Usage (DR_D1)
- Database Access Denied (DR_D2)
- Title Reports (TR)
- Book Requests (Controlled) (TR_B1)
- Book Access Denied (TR_B2)
- Book Usage by Access Type (TR_B3)
Attributes and Filters
You can filter all reports by the Metric Type attribute and you can filter the Title Report report by Year of Publication.
There are some report attributes where there is only one type applicable to Perlego, these attributes are applied by default and no filtering is required.
Attributes where Perlego only supports one type:
| Attribute | Definition | Supported |
|---|---|---|
| Data_Type | The element identifying the type of content. | Book |
| Access_Type | A COUNTER report attribute used to report on the nature of access control restrictions, if any, placed on the content item on the platform at the time when the content item was accessed. | Controlled |
| Access_Method | A COUNTER report attribute indicating whether the usage related to investigations and requests was generated by a human user browsing and searching a website (Regular) or by Text and Data Mining processes (TDM). | Regular |
Perlego is currently exempt from reporting the Book_Segment data type, this is because we provide books in two formats PDF and ePub. Currently PDF content cannot be grouped into reportable chapters in the same way we collect chapter data for ePubs. We hope to introduce data for the Book_Segment data type in future.
Metrics
There are many different actions users can take within Perlego that should be counted against a COUNTER metric.
COUNTER aggregates these user actions into metrics. There are four main categories of metrics.
- Investigations: A category of COUNTER Metric_Types that represent a user accessing information related to a content item (e.g. an abstract or summary of a book) or a content item itself (e.g. full text of a book).
- Requests: A category of COUNTER Metric_Types that represents a user accessing content (e.g. full text of an a book).
- Access Denials: The user is denied access to a content item because their institution lacks a proper license or because simultaneous user limits specified in the license have been exceeded.
- Searches: A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the search form of the online service to the server.
Definitions sourced from the COUNTER 5.1 Glossary of Terms.
The full summary of these user actions within these metric categories can be found below:
Investigations
| User action | Description |
|---|---|
| Added to bookshelf | When a user saves a book to one of their Bookshelves (formerly Workspaces) |
| Bookmark created | When a user adds a bookmark within the E-reader |
| Bookmark clicked | When a user opens a bookmark |
| Book downloaded (mobile app) | When a user downloads a book within the Android or iOS app |
| Book opened | When a user opens a book and accesses the eReader |
| Book preview page | When a user views the book preview page, including the book details and table of contents |
| Book shared | When a user copies the shareable link of a book |
| Cite passage clicked | When a user highlights text and clicks on the cite button |
| Highlight created | When a user creates a highlight within the eReader |
| Highlight clicked | When a user navigates to highlighted text by clicking on saved highlights |
| Note created | When a user creates note within the eReader |
| Note copied | When a user copies the text from a note they’ve made |
| Note clicked | When a user clicks on a note from their notebook or the notes section of the eReader and they get taken to the note within the book |
| Read Aloud started | When read aloud is played |
| Read Aloud resumed | When read aloud is resumed after it has been paused |
| Research Assistant source clicked | When a user clicks on the book source after a Research Assistant answer is generated. |
| Reference copied | When a user clicks on the copy reference button |
| Want to read | When a user marks a book as ‘Want to Read’ |
As all content items within Perlego are books Unique_Item_Investigations and Unique_Title_Investigations will always be the same value.
Double click filtering is applied to all Investigations.
Requests
| User action | Description |
|---|---|
| Book downloaded (mobile app) | When a user downloads a book within the Android or iOS app |
| Book opened | When a user opens a book and accesses the eReader |
As all content items within Perlego are books Unique_Item_Requests and Unique_Title_Requests will always be the same value.
Access Denials
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Limit_Exceeded | When a user cannot create an account because the organisations plan or access link has no subscriptions remaining |
| No_Licence | When a user is blocked from reading book because it's been withdrawn or not available in their region |
Searches
| User action | Description |
|---|---|
| Keyword search | When a user uses the ‘find in book’ feature to search in the eReader |
| Research Assistant question asked | When a user asks a question using the Research Assistant AI tool |
| Research Assistant related question clicked | When a user clicks on a related question and a new answer is generated |
| Smart Search | When a user searches using the Smart Search option |
| Title Search | When a user searches using the Title Search option |
| Topic clicked | When a user clicks on a topic from the Browse by topic page |
As Perlego is considered one database and one platform under the COUNTER Code of Practice, Searches_Regular will always be the same as Searches_Platform.
Perlego is exempt from reporting Searches_Federated. This means searches made by academics within the Perlego LTI integration for Learning Managements Systems (Virtual Learning Environments) will not be counted.
There is no Searches_Automated metric for Perlego because we do no integrate or automate searches on host sites.
Audit
We are currently conducting the audit process with the Alliance for Audited Media. We expect the audit process to be complete by May 2025.
The COUNTER Registry contains up-to-date information about our compliance status.